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MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY 



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DOBCliESTETt. AND tTEST llOXBtfRYi 



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EXERCISES AT THE CONSECRATION, 






THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1852. 




BOSTON : 
CROSBY, NICHOLS & CO., Ill WASHINGTON ST 

18 5 2. 

r)tTr^o^J & WFNTwoRTjr, Pisinters, 37 Coxchf.ss f'TRKi;r, 





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Book ' 6 1 



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MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY 



DORCHESTER AND WEST ROXBURY: 



WITH THK 



(ijirnxm at tijc dronscfratiflii 



THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1852. 




BOSTON: 

CROSBY, NICHOLS AND COMPANY, 

111 Washington Street. 

1852. 






PRINTED BY BUTTON AND WENTWORTB, 

No. 37, Congress Street. 



IN EXCHANGE 
Mr 3 o'6 



V 



MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY. 



Impressed with the imperative necessity of providing against 
the increasing evils resulting from the practice of burying the 
dead within the limits of this populous city, a number of gen- 
tlemen, about a year since, united their efforts, and entered 
into a plan for procuring a commodious tract of land in the 
?^ immediate vicinity — whicli, while its situation should be con' 
/^ vcniently near to the inhabitants of the metropolis, might, at 
the same time, possess all the requisites and attractions of a 
^x Rural Cemetery. 

^ Such a spot, after diligent research, was found lying upon 

the borders of our two neigliboring towns, Dorchester and West 
Roxbury. It comprised an area of eighty-five acres — a space 
more than tenfold greater than the aggregate contents of all the 
grounds in Boston that have been used as^ places of sepulture 
for the last two and a quarter centuries. This spot, for its nat- 
ural beauties, its combined readiness of access, and complete 
seclusion from the busy world, recommended itself at once, as 
presenting every desirable property in reference to the object in 
view. Negotiations with the several owners of the land were 
therefore opened forthwith ; and the result is, the purchase of 
the whole tract, at a fair valuation. Having been fully paid for, 
it is now secured by the most undoubted title, and has become 
the undisputed and unquestionable domain of the corporation of 
Mount Hope Cemetery. 

The subject of preventing and remedying the continued 
perils and pernicious effects of intramural interments, had long 
occupied the earnest attention of our municipal government. 
In 1850, the then mayor, Mr. Bigelow, in an address to the 
city council, after having alluded to the fact that more than 
5000 deaths had occurred in Boston within the preceding year, 



strongly urged " the necessity of making early and adequate 
provisions, beyond the boundaries of the city, for the burial of 
the dead." " Every one of our cemeteries," he remarked, "is 
already full, to an extent which, in a greatci: or less degree, is 
prejudicial to the public health." 

Acting upon this suggestion, a joint special committee, ap 
pointed by the city government, made a critical inspection of 
every suitable site for the contemplated purpose, within reason- 
able distance from the city. The grounds now constituting 
Mount Hope Cemetery excited their most favorable considera- 
tion, and would have commanded their ultimate preference. 
Some difference of views, however, in regard to certain details 
connected with the subject, led to the conclusion that the de- 
sired object might be more successfully accomplished if left to 
individual enterprise, and its subsequent concerns confided to 
the control of an association of shareholders, personally inter- 
ested in the promotion and continued duration of the undertak- 
ing, and duly organized under the perpetually binding provisions 
of our State laws. 

In strict conformity with the requirements of the Revised 
Statutes, this company was regularly incorporated in the year 
1851 — -on the 10th of November in which year it elected its 
first board of officers, as follows : Hon. John H. Wilkins, Pres- 
ident ; Francis O. Watts, Esq., Treasurer; Owen G. Peabody, 
Esq., Clerk ; and Messrs. B. T. Loring, J. K. Porter, S. H. 
Jenks, E. H. Holbrook, and Wm. Brown, Directors. A code 
of appropriate by-laws for the guidance of the members, a 
system of suitable regulations for the management of the 
grounds, and all the requisite forms for the legal conveyance 
and protection of family lots, «fcc., have been framed and 
adopted. In fine, every measnre has been carefully and advis- 
edly taken, for establishing the Cemetery on the most secure, 
permanent, and satisfactory basis, and for its unchangeable oc- 
cupancy as a sacred home for the dead " until time shall be no 
more !" 

Already, this extensive field of " the great teacher" exhibits 
striking indications of its admirable fitness for the mournfully 



interesting purpose to which it is devoted. Numerous family 
lots have been selected and enclosed, and several early graves 
have received their tenants. Its forest-tracts, densely filled with 
noble evergreens — its hill-tops ''crowned with closed wood'' — 
its rocky clefts and secluded dells, with rnniiing streams and 
living springs — its expanded lawns and gently swelling slopes, 
clothed in brilliant verdure, — have been everywhere intersected 
by capacious avenues, branching alleys, and romantic pathways. 
Under the plastic hand of Mr. Haggerston, the tasteful and 
scientific superintendent, these charming improvements have 
sprung forth as it were by magic ; and the whole territory now 
presents a spectacle of varied natural beauty, blended with har- 
monious combinations of artistic skill, surpassed by few if any 
similar spots in New England. 

The ceremony of consecrating these grounds, and thereby 
placing a permanent seal upon their character and destination, 
took place on the 24th of June, 1852, in the midst of a delight- 
ful grove near the centre of the Cemetery, under the open sky, 
and in presence of a numerous and deeply-interested auditory. 
The exercises on that occasion were eminently impressive, 
affecting, and worthy of remembrance. The narrative which 
herein follows, will, it is trusted, carry with it no small portion 
of the religious feeling which pervaded the assembled partici- 
pants in those solemnities. May it contribute to foster and 
preserve corresponding sentiments of veneration through all 
successive ages ! 



ORDER OF SERVICES 

AT THE 

CONSECRATION OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY 

IN 

DORCHESTER AND WEST ROXBURY, 

ON THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1852. 



VOLUNTARY, BY THE GERMANIA SERENADE BAND. 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, BY HON. JOHN H. WILKINS, 

PRESIDENT OF THE CORPORATION. 

INVOCATION, BY REV. DANIEL SHARP, D. D. 

^SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE, BY REV. JAMES H. MEANS. 

ORIGINAL HYMN— BY HON. GEO. LUNT— CHOIR, 

WITH ACCOMPANIMENT BY THE BAND. 

ADDRESS, BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 
CHORAL— M. LUTHER— BY THE BAND. 
PRAYER, BY REV. NATHANIEL HALL. 

POEM, BY EPES SARGENT, ESQ. 
SELECTED HYMN— PEABODY— CHOIR, 

WITH ACCOMPANIMENT BY THE BAND. 

BENEDICTION, BY REV. HUBBARD WINSLOW. 



VOLUNTARY, 



BY THE GERMANIA SERENADE BAND, 

Prayek from Deu Freischutz — Webee. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 

BY HON. JOHN H. WILKINS, BOSTON, 



PRESIDENT OF THE CORPORATION. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — 

Before proceeding to the more interesting and important 
exercises of the occasion, it has been made my official duty to 
ask your indulgence while I offer a few introductory remarks. 

Within comparatively a short period, great and important 
changes have taken place in the public sentiment, here and 
elsewhere, in relation to intramural interments, or interments in 
the close and confined atmosphere of a city. In both the old 
country and the new, the current of opinion is setting strongly 
against the practice, and very justly, on account of public health 
and individual comfort. 

But independent of sentiment and feeling upon the matter, 
the confined and cramped condition of the city of Boston 
imposes upon its inhabitants the almost absolute necessity of 
looking beyond its municipal bounds for accommodations for 
interment. 

With a view to meeting an imperative public want, the cem- 
etery of Mount Auburn was established. That enterprise has 
been eminently successful, and, to a certain extent, has met the 
demands of a great public exigency. But the high cost of lots 
in that enclosure, and the expense of passing to and from it^ 



8 

over a toll bridge, with carriages, many or few, has prevented, 
and will continue to prevent, many of our citizens from availing 
themselves of its advantages. 

The city of Boston, in its municipal capacity, has sorely felt 
the need of an enlarged and convenient burying-place out of 
the city ; and it has on several occasions taken initiatory steps 
towards its attainment. On one occasion, the Mayor and sev- 
eral members of the City Government visited this spot for the 
purpose of judging of its capability and appropriateness to this 
purpose, and I believe but one sentiment existed among the 
visitors as to its suitableness. 

But municipal bodies move slow. The incumbents of the 
government are often changed. The interests of the living so 
press upon their time and means, that the administrators of 
government can scarcely give a thought to the dead. 

But it seems as if the city of Boston could not defer, much 
longer, attention to this matter. The old graveyards are full 
and closed. The only ones in which interments are still made, 
(except in tombs,) are at South Boston and East Boston, — the 
latter (a small enclosure) being mainly relied upon; and this 
can be reached only by crossing a ferry, entailing often delay, 
always expense. And inconvenient and expensive as its ap- 
proach is, it can aftbrd the necessary accommodation but for a 
very few years. 

The proprietors of this enclosure, therefore, feel that they are 
addressing themselves to a great public and private want, in 
dedicating it to the purpose of a burial-place. They claim for 
the enterprise a public exigency, almost a public necessity. 
They invite you to inspect the grounds, to notice their charac- 
teristics, — in some parts swelling into gentle acclivities, and in 
others depressed into moderate valleys, here the eye resting 
upon the verdure of the green sward, and there upon the dense 
and luxuriant foliage of the groves ; thus presenting all the 
variety in surface and natural garniture which is so gratifying 
to good judgment and taste. And all this is within moderate 
distance from the city, approachable without the expense of 
tolls, the lots laid out with taste and convenience, and offered 



at prices so low as to bring them within the means of all who 
are in circumstances above absolute poverty. 

I speak of this enterprise as one satisfying a want both pub- 
lic and private. In the early periods of our history, the public 
and private interest in a church-yard were much the same thing. 
Families had a portion set apart, as it were, for their special use. 
Go into a country burying-ground : you will find that clusters 
of tombstones bear the same name. Individuals of the same 
family, from generation to generation, repose in the immediate 
vicinity of the parent stock, so that the whole public cemetery 
is little more than the aggregate o( privatelois. But such things 
cannot take place in our city. Whoever occupies a grave in 
our city burying-place, must know no antecedent and no conse- 
quent. He must take the space allotted, and, in general, no 
friend or relative will be able to separate his resting-place from 
that of his fellow-occupants. From the necessity of the case, 
an undistinguished and undistinguishable excavation must hold 
the mortal remains of those friendless ones whom the city inters, 
and of whom the survivors would sometimes gladly mark the 
resting-place. 

That such is the fact is to be regretted ; but in this utilitarian 
age I hardly know how it can be helped, except by appealing to 
a wholesome sentiment which certainly exists in the breasts of 
all, and thus inducing our fellow-citizens to secure a final rest- 
ing-place for themselves and families, distinct and guarded from 
the intrusion of others, and which they may adorn with monu- 
mental or other memorials, according to their taste and ability. 

The wholesome sentiment to which I allude as being uni- 
versal, is that Avhich separates a community into families, and 
families into apartments. Every one, as it were instinctively, 
seeks a place that he may call his own, and where he may be 
free from unwelcome intrusion. Every one yearns for such a 
condition while living ; and he cannot without sadness antici- 
pate the deprivation of it even in the grave. 

The working of this sentiment is beautifully portrayed in the 
ancient and sacred records of the Old Testament. When Sarah 
the wife of Abraham died, Abraham spoke thus to the sons of 

3 



10 

Heth : •' I am a stranger and a sojourner with you ; give me a 
possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my 
dead out of my sight. And the children of Heth answered 
Abraham, and said unto him. Hear us, my lord ; thou art a 
mighty prince among us : in the choice of our sepulchres bury 
thy dead : none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, 
but thou mayest bury thy dead. And Abraham communed 
with them saying. Entreat for me to Ephron that he may give 
me the cave of Machpelah, for as much money as it is worth, 
for a possession of a burying-place. And Ephron answered 
Abraham, Nay, my lord, the field give I thee, and the cave that 
is therein, I give it thee ; bury thy dead. And Abraham spake 
unto Ephron, saying, I will give thee money for the field ; take 
it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered 
Abraham, The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver ; 
what is that betwixt me and thee ? bury therefore thy dead. 
And Abraham Aveighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of sil- 
ver, current money with the merchant, and the field of Ephron, 
which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field 
and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in 
the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made 
sure to Abraham for a possession. And after this, Abraham 
buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, 
before Mamre. And the field, and the cave that is therein, 
were made sure to Abraham for a possession of a burying-place, 
by the sons of Heth." 

And it is recorded, that after Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, 
had blessed his children before he died in Egypt, he charged 
them and said unto them, " I am to be gathered to my people ; 
bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of 
Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpe- 
lah, which is before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the 
field of Ephron, for a possession of a burying-place. There 
they buried Abraham, and Sarah his wife ; there they buried 
Isaac, and Rebecca his wife ; and there I buried Leah." 

Though Abraham was urged to bury his dead in the choice 
of the sepulchres of the people, he was unwilling to share with 



11 

others a common grave. And when still farther urged to accept 
gratuitously the field and cave for a burying-place, he still de- 
clined, and would be content with nothing short of actual pur- 
chase of the field and the cave, and all the trees that were in 
the field, and in all the borders round about, in order that they 
might be made sure to him for a possession. 

The sentiment here depicted is common to our nature ; it 
works more or less effectively in every breast. Its tone is manly, 
and its legitimate fruits are beneficial to the public. While, 
therefore, the proprietors address themselves to an universal 
sentiment, and to a pressing want, they indulge the hope and 
the expectation, that their enterprise may receive a liberal share 
of the public favor. 



INVOCATION, 

BY REV. DANIEL SHARP, D. D., BOSTON. 

Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and the Maker of 
our frames, by whose care and goodness we live and move and have 
our being, and who at death dost permit man's spirit to return to thee, 
and his body to find a resting-place in the grave ; we thank thee, that, 
in the progress of events, the thoughts of the present generation have 
been occupied with that " one event which happeneth to all." As we 
must bury our dead, we are grateful, that, instead of interring them 
near the crowded dwellings of human beings, the din of business, and 
the noise of earthly voices, there have been provided for them, " the 
calm retreat and the silent shade." 

O Lord, blessed with such a retreat, we come to-day to consecrate 
the ground around us a place of undisturbed repose for the Dead. 
May those, who shall be buried here, rest in peace until the Trumpet 
shall sound, and the righteous dead shall awake to an immortal and 
glorious life. 

We consecrate this burial-place to the sympathies of humanity, — to 
the tears of bereaved love, and the remembrances of friendship. We 
consecrate it to sober thoughts, — to pious musings^ — ^to holy resolu- 
tions, — to faith's anticipations. 



12 

We pray, O God, that these grounds may never be desecrated by 
scenes of levity and thoughtless joy. May those who come hither, 
suitably recollect the last counsels, the last expressions of affection, 
the last warnings and encouragements which came from the lips of 
their departed relatives and friends, — and when they return from their 
communings with the dead, may they know, that, " by the sadness of 
the countenance, the heart is made better." 

Father of the fatherless ; God of the widow, and friend of the friend- 
less ; who canst cause good to come out of evil, and canst turn our 
darkness into day ; accept, we beseech thee, of this our Consecration, 
and hear with favor our supplications. 

May the services of this hour ; the song of holy praise ; the grave 
teachings of thy servant, and the sentiments which shall be addressed 
to us in measured and harmonious numbers, with the humble prayer, 
be well pleasing to thee, and profitable to us. 

These blessings we ask in the name of Him, who is the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life, — to whom, be glory everlasting. Amen. 



SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE, 

BY REV. JAMES H. MEANS, DORCHESTER. 

' Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth ; are not his 
days also^as the days of an hireling ? 

What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death ? Shall he de- 
liver his soul from the hand of the grave ? 

As for man, his days are as grass ; as a flower of the field, so he 
flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place 
thereof shall know it no more. 

As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. 

Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or 
the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the 
cistern : then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit 
shall return to God who gave it. 



13 

I know that thou wilt bring me to death, unto the house appointed 
for all living. 

There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at 
rest : There the prisoners rest together ; they hear not the voice of the 
oppressor. 

The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his 
master. 

Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. 



If a man die, shall he live again ? 

Shall the dead arise, and praise thee ? Shall thy loving kindness be 
declared in the grave .'' Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and 
thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness ? 

All that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come 
forth : they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they 
that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. 

I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem 
them from death. Oh death, I will be thy plagues ; oh grave, I will 
be thy destruction. 

I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are 
asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth : and tho' after my skin worms destroy this body, 
yet in my flesh shall I see God. 

My flesh also shall rest in hope. It is sown in corruption, it is raised 
in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory ; it is sown 
in weakness, it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is 
raised a spiritual body. So when this corruptible shall have put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality ; then shall 
be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in 
victory. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy vic- 
tory ? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 
But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 



14 



ORIGINAL HYMN, 

BY HON. GEORGE LUNT, BOSTON, 



TUNE LADOGA. 



How oft, beneath this sacred shade, 

Encompassed by the earth's green breast, 

Shall many a weary head be laid. 

And wandering hearts find peaceful rest. 

Each opening leaf and flower shall bring 
Memorials of their higher birth. 

And whispering breezes o'er them sing 
Some requiem for the lost of earth. 

And still, while rolls the circling year. 
Shall weeded lingerers oft be found. 

To trace love's gentle records here. 
And haste to deck the hallowed ground. 

If earth were all, — how sad to leave 
What never, never can return, — 

But oh, if opening Heaven receive, 
How vain the parted shade to mourn ! 

But here, while days on days repeat 
The annals of each coming race, 

May Faith, Hope, Love, forever meet, 
To crown and bless the sylvan place. 



15 



ADDRESS, 

BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON, BOSTON, 



€ I) r i 1 i a u S u r i a K 

Not with any uncharitable or superstitious meaning, 
not to forbid any sect, nor to forestall any mystic male- 
diction, but in the natural, religious spirit of the place 
and its uses, we have come out to set this field apart for 
Christian Burial. We separate it, not from the admission 
of disciples of any creed, or citizens of any country ; but 
from profane intrusion and vulgar publicity. We would 
reserve and secure, not only by tasteful enclosures, but 
by these ceremonies of worship, the retirement and sanc- 
tity of the spot. AVe would hallow it, as the possession 
and resting-place of beloved kindred, venerated friends, 
respected strangers, human brothers. We dedicate it, in 
the faith of Jesus Christ our Lord, who has brought 
immortality to light. AVe consecrate it by prayers to the 
Father of the living and the dead, — Himself living for- 
evermore. 

In cheerful obedience to one of the best promptings 
of a refined and elevated sentiment, you, gentlemen, have 
offered this fresh encouragement to the growing custom 
of rural interments. I shall not violate the beauty of 
this scene, — itself the gift of a renovated taste, — I will 
not offend the purity of this unpolluted air, nor mar a 
service devoted to more spiritual meditations, with any 
revolting recitals of the horrors of intramural burials. 
I will not recall to you the abominations of the Carapo 



16 

Santo, the disgusting disclosures of the Parisian and 
London sextons, the shocking statistics lately laid before 
Parliament touching the graveyards in English cities, 
nor the similar defilements that have already threatened 
to stain the history of some of our American municipali- 
ties. Here, where every association betokens a better 
day, and where every sight and sound, from the open 
arch of radiant heavens, to the vesper melody of the 
wood thrush in the thicket, witnesses to a more humane 
thoughtfulness, — we will pass these barbarous abuses by. 
It is enough that they are vanishing ; that the hour is 
past when arguments are needed against a usage repug- 
nant to all that is tender in human breasts ; that we are 
beholding to-day a new and graceful pledge of this ad- 
vance of Christian feeling. Here, the sensibilities of 
mourners, bringing out their precious burdens, — earth to 
earth, — shall not suffer an aggravation of their bereave- 
ment in the careless intrusion of unsympathizing crow^ds. 
Here, there shall be no clanging beat of the world's fierce 
march, nor clamor of its traffic, nor laugh of its folly, nor 
ostentation of its vanity, nor loud gossip of its trampling 
caravans, to mock the sleeper's rest. Here, when weep- 
ing eyes look into the open chamber of death, no un- 
sightly dilapidations, nor rude invasions of tombs, shall 
interrupt the memory of that new tomb that was hewn 
out of a rock in the garden of Joseph, — broken only by 
a Saviour's resurrection, to let in, on our darkness, the 
dayspring of an immortal hope. And when, in those 
sad days of solitude that follow the last look of love, the 
bereaved shall come out to comfort the dreary hours by 
a sorrowful communion with the dust that is still dear, — 
bringing fragrant flowers as the first Christian women 
brought spices and perfume to the sepulchre of their 
Lord, — they shall seek their dead among no undistin- 



17 

guishable and disordered heaps, nor find the sacrament 
of friendship profaned by heartless curiosity. Thej 
can be alone with the bitterness that only each heart 
knoweth for itself, and the stranger cannot intermeddle 
with; alone Avith Him who brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus Christ. Here there is both the 
favoring opportunity, and the secret invitation, to he still 
and know that your Father is God. 

This lot is to be no Necropolis, or cifj/ of the dead, — 
but their country rest, — their natural, forest home, — their 
open sanctuary, free to all the winds of heaven, and all 
the influences of the sky. We will hold it, therefore^ 
under none of the old titles, tainted with the odors of 
unbelief in a Life hereafter. We will not call it, with 
the Egyptians, a place of " Eternal Habitations," because 
the Christicin's only everlasting tabernacles are those 
" not built wdtli hands eternal in the heavens." The 
prophetic faith even of the half-instructed Hebrews^ 
catching a beam of truth from the later revelation they 
waited for, named their burial-places " Homes of the 
Living." I like the name chosen by the Moravian breth- 
ren, " Fields of Peace," — fit designation for the final 
halting-ground of their quiet, affectionate lives; — and 
that of the Germans, " God's Harvest-Field." Our own 
word " Cemetery," is Christian ; for it means literally a 
sleeping-place, — and so is justified by that touching 
announcement from Jesus, " Our friend Lazarus sleep- 
eth." And when you add to this, " Mount Hope," lifting^ 
the thoughts upward, and bringing in that grand central 
idea of Christianity, whose sisters, in the apostolic enu- 
meration of the three-fold band, are Faith and Charity,, 
you not only adopt a style most suited to the spot, but 
you suggest the most appropriate theme for this service 
of consecration. 
3 



18 

" Mount Hope Cemetery !" Each word is charged 
with a worthy significance. In the " sleeping-place," 
there is hid a silent prediction of a morning, and a 
"" waking out of sleep." The "-Mount" is a symbol of 
steadfastness and exaltation, — both attributes of a be- 
liever's " Hope," — and, by its inspired associations with 
Tabor and Moriah, Olivet and Sinai, Lebanon and Zion, 
carries our devotions up with the Psalmist's, and we 
"look unto the hills from whence cometh our help." 
One of the spiritual writers of the Church has said : 
" Hope alone is the light by which we, sad-featured 
dwellers among tombs, can find our w^ay. For hope 
reconciles us to life, and makes death pleasant. Hope 
clasps the cross, and yearns onward for the cro^vn. Hope 
begets good works, consecrates hearts, purifies the fleshly 
temples of the spirit, and tastes of heaven." If art were 
to devise some motto and legend that should gather up 
and concentrate all the reigning spirit of this spot, it 
should be the image of that forward-reaching and upward- 
looking angel, and the writing of inspiration under it, — 
" Looking for that blessed Hope, even the glorious 
appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ " For it is not of our hopes that we here make 
burial, as heathen might. We only commit them to the 
heavenly Treasury ; we drop them into the j)arental, 
creative Bosom ; we sow them, that, under the genial 
sunlight of the promise, wc may reap their ripened fulfil- 
ment in the resurrection of the spirit. 

There is something quite in harmony with the loftier 
teachings of our religion in the more vigilant care exer- 
cised for the mortal remains of the deceased, illustrated 
in these chaste embellishments. It rebukes that indelicate 
economy which, in many of our New England villages, 
used to appropriate only some bleak and barren bank of 



19 

sand, resigned to the dead because unprofitable to the 
living. Sharply as Christ drew the distinction between 
the ascending spirit and the perishing flesh, he never 
despised reverential tributes to the human body. Did he 
not graciously accept the costly anointing of Mary, be- 
cause she did it for his burial ? It is by an instinctive 
craving of nature that we desire the grave to be not only 
the last, but an undisturbed, an inalienable possession. 
A pious affection in the survivors must defend the en- 
closures whose title-deeds and acres the decaying hands 
cannot protect for themselves. We may not shudder 
with the dread of hostile inroads ; we may feel no fears 
that, as has sometimes happened in the wars and sieges 
of the past, the lead upon our coffins will be wrenched 
off and melted into bullets to sow death for a second 
harvest ; that our shrouds will be burnt for fuel or 
torches, as those of ancient oriental princes are, by mod- 
ern Arabsj that our tombs will be turned into stables 
for cavalry, as the old Egyptian crypts have been ; that 
" mummy" will again " become merchandise," as " Miz- 
raim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." 
But shall we not carry our solicitude beyond the bare se- 
curities of repose ^ Shall we not rather so call about the 
grave persuasive monitors to virtue, and so multiply the 
voiceless preachers of Christian hope, — that every visit to 
it shall uplift and expand the soul, — making it truer for 
duty, more patient for endurance? In older times, it 
was a practice to lead out the youths of royal families to 
gaze on the monuments of their ancestors, and be inspired 
there to emulate their heroism. By a holier right, every 
look of our children on the ridges and headstones of 
Mount Hope ought to yield a confession and a prayer. 
And thus, as in other countries it has been an observance 
for every passenger to perpetuate and enlarge the mound 



2G 

that marks a grave, by casting one more stone upon the 
sepulchral pile, let us see to it that, in a field like this, 
there is a corresponding, ever-widening growth of moral 
sanctity, from the sobered mind and wiser heart of all 
that linger in its avenues. 

Centuries of Christian history have not wholly con- 
formed our customs to the character of the simple and 
animating faith w^e profess. Some shadows from the 
pagan night have left their gloomy bars across our Chris- 
tian day. If we reject the despairing creed of a pitiless 
fate ; if we believe, as we pretend, that to the disciple 
death is but the beckoning of a Divine hand towards in- 
finite joy; that a sinless, emancipated future is to be 
preferred before a halting and failing present ; then the 
badges of a comfortless despondency should not be the 
universal clothing of our burial-service, and never the 
accompaniments of the funerals of the good, — those 
" pure in heart," who die only the sooner to sQe God. It 
has been related that, in the simplicity of the youthful 
church, many heathen workmen about the cemeteries 
were first converted to the Gospel by the astonishing 
spectacle of a new class of mourners, — who came out to 
deposit their dead W'ith contented faces, — looked into the 
graves as if they were gates of the morning, — called death 
a refreshing trance, and spoke of the enviable companies 
who had escaped tribulation to be with Christ. Mourn- 
ing without hope was never a part of the good confes- 
sion. So far back as the time of Chrysostom and Augus- 
tine, those great teachers remonstrated against complain- 
ing tones in the songs at funerals. It is well, my friends, 
if any gentle provisions of ours, like the opening of these 
rural groves, can soften the asperities of sorrow. Let the 
•cheerful solemnity of the sky overhang the beds of the 
departed. Let the bright countenance of the sun look 



21 

down upon them. Let the consolations of the flo-wers, — 

" Floral apostles that, with dewy splendor, 
Weep without woe and blush without a crime, — 

offer their benediction. Let storm and thunder peal the 
grand " Gloria in excelsis" from their sublime organs of 
the air. Let the innocent living creatures come near, to 
sing their inarticulate, plaintive hymns, — the orchestral 
" misereres'' of the forest. You have noticed how soon, 
in the cemeteries which only a few years have been set 
apart from violence, the hunted birds and animals seem 
to have caught the secret of the kindly regulation which 
wards off the sportsman, and so have clustered in from 
the frequent alarms outside, to people the spot where no 
terrifying weapons can follow, rewarding, by that beau- 
tiful confidence, the protection of the place. I have 
sometimes thought we might discover, in this slight token 
of mutual friendliness between the tamed creatures and 
the tamed passions of men, an illustration how deep the 
spiritual foundation lies of that ancient prophecy, that 
when Christ's reconciling temper really makes its advent 
into society, the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and 
the little child shall put his hand on the den of the cock- 
atrice, and they shall not hurt nor destroy in all the holy 
mountain. 

On the stones that shall be raised along these paths 
and terraces, there will be inscribed tributes of esteem, 
and earnest lamentations of affection. Let no utterances 
of heathenish despair, no unbelieving resentments, no 
voices of selfish and inconsolable distress, mingle with 
the Christian submission of these epitaphs. Write on 
these tablets of a Christian burial-place, none but Chris- 
tian words, elegies of a Christian grief Among the 
graves of Mount Hope, let there be no records of hopeless 
anguish. One of the gloomiest tokens of the emptiness 



22 

of all worldly gaiety, fashion, and power, is in the uni- 
form tone of faithless despondency among the inscriptions 
of Pere la Chaise, — itself a sadder monument than any 
in the field. French vivacity and genius have found no 
serene thoughts to chisel on the splendid marbles of rank 
and fame. But go from Paris to Pome ; read the epi- 
taphs of those first Christians, who worshipped and 
suffered martyrdom in the catacombs. They were cut 
by unlettered gravers, on rough rocks, with rude instru- 
ments, in subterranean chambers, where converted sand- 
diggers nursed the early church, and where the indomi- 
table confessors of Christ hid from the fierce cruelties of 
royal persecutors. Often they were scratched in haste, 
and in the dark ; and the ill-spelt plebeian names show 
how God, as his economy so often is, chose the witnesses 
of his religion out of lowly places, and made the weak 
things of the world to confound the wisdom of the mighty. 
For they have confounded it. When the Cross had tri- 
umphed over the Praetorian Eagles, and the despised 
religion of Nazareth had gone up to sit on the throne of 
the Caesars, those humble gravestones were lifted from 
the shadows of the catacombs into the light, and installed 
in honored niches among the pomps of the Vatican. 
There you may read, in impressive contrast with the 
formal flatteries and inflated threnodies of more artificial 
days, what phrases men, who stood very near to the 
Master, thought worthy to be stamped on the sepulchres 
of their friends. Simple, as the Saviour s beatitudes ! 
Brief, as if a life so sorely straitened by trial had no time 
for diffuse eulogies ! Patient, as if they had lived long 
enough when they might go home to their God, or when 
they could shed their blood for Christ, — words actually 
carved on the tomb of Marius, a young soldier, slain for 
his faith ! No petulant murmurs at their losses and 



23 

separations ; no arrogant suspicions of the Providential 
Mercy ; no vengeful anathemas on their murderers ! — 
But such sweet, plain, sublime sentences as these, mostly 
from evangelists and apostles : " In peace ;" " In Christ ;" 
" At rest with God ;"' '• Maximius, friend of all men ;" 
" Gorgonius, enemy of none ;" " Our beautiful boy, Iren- 
eus, borne away by angels ;" " My husband, faithful unto 
death ;" " A wife, fallen asleep in Jesus ;" " To Claudius, 
the well-deserving, who loved me ;" " Victorina sleeps ;" 
" Arethusa, in God ;" " Lannoeus, Christ's martyr, rests 
here ;" " Petronia, a deacon's wife, the image of modesty. 
Spare your tears, and believe that it is forbidden to weep 
for one who lives for God."' All speak of love and 
peace, victory and life eternal. 

If our own discipline does not move us to something 
of this ancient resignation, and impress upon the lan- 
guage of our cemeteries something of the grandeur of 
that strict simplicity, let us go back and at once replen- 
ish our faith, and chasten our taste, in that morning air 
of the church. We will learn from those brave believers 
how to weep for our dead. But there is hardly a grave- 
yard which does not itself commend to the unperverted 
heart the true rule of funeral inscriptions. Mixed with 
high-sounding verses, fulsome compliments, as insulting 
to the modesty of the dead, perhaps, as they are ineffect- 
ual and unfelt to the living, or pedantic quotations from 
the classics, you meet some of those short but overpower- 
ing expressions of submissive sorrow which bring a rev- 
erential hush over even a stranger's spirit, and carry a 
silent intercession to heaven. Hinder indifferent passers- 
by with no prolix catalogue of the virtues of the departed. 
Cast not before the careless multitude all the passionate 
sobs of your personal agony. But if you would write a 
truly Christian inscription, choose one of the choicest 



24 

lines from the great poets of our English tongue, ^vhose 
names are to mark these avenues. Better still, — far best 
of all, — take some of those divine watchwords, — familiar 
to all Christian veneration, and the more familiar the 
dearer to the heart, — God's own elegiac inspirations : 
"Father, I will that they also whom thou'hast given me, 
be with me where I am ;" " I am the resurrection and 
the life ;" " Whoso believeth on me, though he were 
dead yet shall he live;" "My peace I leave with you;" 
" God is love ;" " Blessed are they that mourn ;" " We 
are more than conquerors ;" " This mortal must put on 
immortality ;" " Now is Christ risen from the dead ;" 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ;" " Blessed 
is he that considereth the poor ;" " She hath done what 
she could ;" " Her children rise up and call her blessed ;" 
" Be ye also ready ;" " Jacob set a pillar on Rachel's 
grave ;" " Jesus called a little child unto him ;" " Is it 
well with the child 1 and she ansv>'ered, It is well ;" 
" Let not your heart be troubled ;" " All tears shall be 
wiped from all eyes ;" " Be thou faithful unto death, and 
T will give thee a crown of life." 

These are right epitaphs for Christian cemeteries. 

Among these graceful groves, — the shafts of God's 
own planting, and the sculptures of his chiselling, — 
there will be placed monumental tablets, with forms and 
faces of various import. Bring no structures that inti- 
mate a pagan skepticism ; no ambitious shapes, gaudy 
colors, and gilded letters, to catch the eye of an empty 
admiration. Borrow no designs from Egyptian or Greek 
mythology, unless you can find in them a Christian inter- 
pretation, or fix upon them a spiritual significance, as 
our Religion has appropriated to its worship the heathen 
basilica) and Roman Pantheon. The believers of the 
catacombs wrought their sepulchral symbols with an art 



25 

that was baptized into the temper of the Gospel ; they 
carved pictures of love, symbols of reconciliation, — a 
monogram of the Saviour, a ship at anchor in her ha- 
ven, a palm-branch and crown, a lamb, a dove, a cross. 
In all the leafy apartments of this sanctuary of many 
mansions for the dead, let there be no broken columns, 
emblems of blighted expectation and frustrated design ; 
no tokens of endless night ; no signals of a stoic worship 
of Destiny. Scatter stimulating proofs that you believe 
in a risen Lord, — signs of that gentle faith, that even a 
little child, dying out of arms the first time clasping it, 
if it has wakened, by its speechless look, one aspiration 
to the Father, and then gone up into kindred purity, — 
has not lived in vain, nor died too soon. 

Every way, it becomes us to spiritualize our tradition- 
ary ceremonials, and put a profounder meaning into the 
fashions we inherit from nations that knew not Christ. 
The Athenians bore out children to burial only after the 
sun had gone down, to spare that rejoicing luminary the 
untimely spectacle. But we, who live under a sun that 
never sets, will hide no fact of God's ordaining from the 
eyes of his day. The loud lamentations and hired weep- 
ers, we will supplant with a still submission. Instead of 
naked feet, let our mourners show sincere and lowly 
minds ; instead of showy garments wrapped about the 
lifeless corpse, — white linen, best emblem of all our pov- 
erty before Him with whom only a meek and quiet spirit 
has great price. No superstition shall lean to catch the 
departing breath of the dying, but a reasonable faith 
preserve whatever ennobling virtue went out from their 
example. No sulphur and laurel need be burnt to 
cleanse the house, where the body has rested, of malig- 
nant influences; pure lives and graceful charities will 
dispossess all demons and their enchantments. The dewy 
4 



26 

violets and windflowers, bending over the green sod, 
shall be our lachrymatories ; and for libations of blood 
or wine, we will sprinkle the fragrant blossoms of June, 
or plant the perennial graces . of the sweet-brier, the 
woodbine, and the rose. 

We look forward, and behold the ever-altering aspects 
that sorrow will wear, as it enters these gates. Here, 
beneath the awning of these venerable pines, will lie 
some more venerable form, — the locks of a spent age 
parted over the pulseless temples by reverent filial hands. 
Under yonder oak will sleep some radiant boy, — the 
'blooming promise scarcely faded on his aspiring fore- 
Tiead ; and there will be the shrine of how many sisterly 
.and parental sighs ! Round the beech a little farther on, 
a family group will gather at summer-sunsets, — because 
under the turf is a young girl that died with none depend- 
ent on her, — save as love always depends on the pres- 
ence of the loved, — brought out here one dreadful day 
with youth's unshrunken roundness in her hand, its love- 
light hardly quenched in her eyes. By that hillside will 
he the resort of some desolated household, left to many 
strifes with poverty and hardship, because the manly 
strength of a father was struck down by fever in the 
thick combat of unsuccessful fortunes. In the shady 
copse will be lowered to its deep couch the hand that 
early love clung to, trying to keep warm life in it a little 
longer by the fervor of its prayer. Not far off, some 
frail and delicate form of woman, who waited for her 
•change with her first-born on her bosom ; and a youth 
will afterwards be led there, to conjecture out of a dim 
and fading memory the features that vanished before in- 
fant eyes had comiDrehended the mystery of their silence ; 
and elsewhere, close by a mother's grave, the little one 
ihat hastened to follow her, as if homesick for the face 



27 

that seemed to bear all Heaven in its tender expression. 
Over them all, Christ repeats — "In my Father's house 
are many mansions." 

How far death is from being a respecter of persons 
will be known here. Nature offers her unrivalled adorn- 
ments, passing Solomon's glory, as freely to the poor 
whose kindred have to beg decent habiliments for the 
last office, as to the rich merchants whose freights mingle 
in the commerce of all the waters that embrace the globe. 
The old who lived to feel the lightest touch of the watch- 
er's fingers a burden, and the infant that died before 
it knew the meaning of life, — passing together into the 
world where the child is mature with the holy wisdom of 
the skies, — and where aged believers are young with the 
immortal youth of the heart, — leave their earthly vestures 
folded under these impartial clods. Injury here sees it 
too late to supplicate forgiveness. Inhumanity weeps 
with unavailing pity. Evil examples are wrung Avitli re- 
morse over their perished victims. So learning to num- 
ber their days, strange indeed if the living did not here 
apply their hearts unto immortal wisdom. How fast 
that night cometh wherein no man can work, is told by 
the columns that will thicken and cluster among the 
foliage, as plainly as by these lengthening shadows on 
the grass at your feet. And so the Cemetery comes to 
represent the three great institutions of our Moral Life : 
the Family — each separate enclosure preserving the de- 
parted kindred "one household still;" the Church — 
sacred to worship, and dedicated to communion ; the 
School — instilling the purest lessons of Truth. 

" From every grave a thousand virtues rise, 
In shapes of mercy, charity and love, 
To walk the world and bless it. Of every tear 
That sorrowing mortals shed on these green graves 
Some good is born, some gentler nature comes." 



28 

By some of these paths strangers will be buried ; those 
that have brought fragile frames from softer climates to 
lay them down in ours, — travellers from beyond oceans, — 
exiles from old oppressions. The accelerating processes 
of international communication, and the intermingling 
of continents, will multiply these claimants on your fune- 
ral hospitality. Let the dictates of religion join with 
the impulses of humanity to provide thoughtful services 
for the foreigner that falls by his way, — 

•' By strangers buried and by strangers mourned." 

Need I speak to you of the features of the place, while 
their living and eloquent beauty speaks so significantly 
on every side"? It must be a sluggish sensibility that 
can find in all the influences that encompass us nothing 
congenial to the holy uses to which we now give up the 
spot. With diversity enough to satisfy the most varying 
tastes, it contains no nook that does not blend into the 
harmony of the whole. Open spaces to let in broad 
belts of sunshine for those that love to see its warm 
beams falling on the sod, and shaded dells with their 
" dim religious light," for such as find shadow^s in better 
keeping with their grief; gentle acclivities and graceful 
knolls ; ledges that revive the old Hebrew blessing on 
" the shadow of a great rock in a weary land ;" springs 
of water to typify the life-giving well of which Jesus 
spoke to the woman of Samaria ; the lawn yonder that 
refreshes the eye with its moist greenness, while it car- 
ries the mind on to those greener meadows, beside still 
waters, where the Good Shepherd shall lead his accepted 
fold ; all the variety of our New England forests ; room 
for future improvements suited to the desires of individ- 
uals ; beyond the upland, and screened from view, as is 
fitting, yet not far removed, — the great city, with the 



29 

everlasting throb and roar of its waves of enterprise 
hushed by the intervening quiet ; and round all, — visible 
from the elevations, — the sweep of mountains, exalting 
the spirit with their steadfast grandeur, and bringing 
spontaneously back the Psalmist's inspired verse : " As 
the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord 
is round about his people :" these are the outlines that 
form the symmetrical scenery of our "Field of Peace," 
our Mount of Hope. 

No season of the changing year, but shall offer its 
soothing message, mingling the whispers of nature with 
the recollections of love. In summer, ten thousand leafy 
tongues breathe their prayer for the Creator s compas- 
sion, and the full glory of the blossoming year wins des- 
pondency itself to thanksgiving. Autumn winds have 
another voice not less needful, symbolizing our transient 
breath, and if the withered foliage that drops on the 
graves, or drifts between the stalks of the golden-rod 
and aster, is a monitor of our decay, so does the gor- 
geous pageant of the early frost hint a mysterious proph- 
ecy of a resurrection. Winter spreads a winding-sheet 
of its own ; and by its sharp contrast of naked branches 
with the evergreens, still renews the type of the tempo- 
rary trance and the eternal life. Even the heathen Virgil 
caught some faint intimation of a foretold future in the 
low-voiced pine, " Sybillans Pinus !" And in the morn- 
ing of the year's resurrection, when the mourners come 
to plant spring-flowers in the softening earth, and to 
twine the clinging vines about the trellises or tree-trunks, 
so perpetuating their regrets by offices too tender to be 
refused, every swelling germ and bursting bud, and bird's 
lyric note overhead, will seem to aid the sublime assur- 
ance of the Apostle, — "That which thou sowest is not 
quickened except it die." 



30 

" We know when moons shall wane ; 
When summer birds from far shall cross the sea ; 

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grains ; 
But who shall teach us when to look for thee ? 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath ; 

And stars to set, — but all, 
Thou hast all seasons, for thine own, O Death !" 

"We think of the final partings that these trees and 
rocks shall witness ; of the bitter tears that shall be 
rained on this upturned soil ; of the passionate caresses 
before the coffin-lid is shut ; of the trembling steps this 
ground shall feel ; of the earnest prayers for stronger 
faith that will go up from broken hearts through all this 
air, in their flight to the mercy-seat ; and we bless the 
Father of Christ anew for the religion of Him who wept 
at the grave of his friend, sanctioning our natural sor- 
row ; for the faith that knows how to pray when all help 
but prayer is gone ; for the consolation of that celestial 
beatitude, " Blessed are they that mourn !" And then, 
among the healing ministries that come to sustain the 
bereaved, — all too feeble perhaps to give back the former 
joy of life, — may not some quiet ray of Christian peace 
stream in, from the very name, — "Mount Hope," — given 
to the sleeper's bed 1 

From this hour, Mount Hope Cemetery is thrown 
open to its noiseless occupants. In a voice all unlike 
the shrill cry of the sextons of the plague, — in the moth- 
erly tones of nature herself, loving all her children, and 
cherishing even their ashes, — it bids us "make room for 
the dead." It invites the weary, the sufi'ering, the dis- 
consolate, to come and sleep in its bosom. 

And they will come. Already the slow processions 
have taken up their march towards this last encamp- 
ment. How they lengthen down the coming years ! 



31 

From the eager jostle of interests and ambitions in yon- 
der " anthill of a city ;" from streets trodden by multi- 
tudes "vvhose faces are stony -with care ; from homes agi- 
tated by all the fascinating tragedy of experience ; from 
among diggers of gold, hunters of mirth and slaves of 
vice ; from among saintly philanthropists, consistent wor- 
shippers, honorable workmen, faithful friends, upright, 
valiant souls, — one by one the bodies shall be taken up 
and borne out to these sequestered acres, — where the 
wicked cease from troubling and the weary rest. And 
behind them, the tide of life Avill still roll on undisturbed 
to its predestined end. 

"We set apart Mount Hope, therefore, to make it the 
tranquil, rural rest of departed bodies. We consecrate 
it to Death, and to Life ; to the living who shall die, — 
to the dead who shall rise ; to the sorrowful affections of 
survivors, and to the joyful expectations of the righteous, 
waiting their change without fear ; to them that shall 
have fallen asleep, and to the unsleeping Spirit who 
watches, — watches through all stormy and tempestuous 
nights, — through bleak snows and torrid heats, — watches 
from that serene and immovable Throne whose founda- 
tions are justice and judgment, — watches, forevermore, 
our helpless frame, and remembereth our dust. 

Christian Faith has sAvept away the phantom of that 
arbitrary Rhadamanthine court that, on the banks of the 
Sacred Lake, adjudged their places to the immortals. 
We have one God, ever our Father, impartial and merci- 
ful, loving righteousness, hating iniquity, who judgeth 
every soul, of quick and dead, by the Son whom he hath 
ordained. Unto Him, then, — from these habitations of 
dust, — from this verdant church of funereal praise, — 
from this seed-field of spiritual wisdom, — from this Mount 
of Hope, — be our thankful adoration, through Christ, 
the Resurrection and the Life ! 



32 



CHORAL BY THE BAND. 

Choral — ( Jesus meine Zuversicht ! ) — M. Luthee. 

( " My Saviour my Confidence." ) 



PRAYER, 

BY REV. NATHANIEL HALL, DORCHESTER. 

God of Nature ! Here, amidst thy beautiful works, would we 
worship thee. Here, where all things attest thy presence and thy love, 
would we feel thy presence and love within our souls. Here, as in a 
temple which thine own hands have buildcd, — thine arching sky above 
us, thy flowery earth beneath, — would we bend in the spirit of a true 
devotion. 

God of Grace ! who, by a clearer than Nature's testimony, hast 
assured us of thy love ; who, by a tenderer than Nature's voices, hast 
invited us to thyself, — we come, in filial confidence and trust, and seek 
upon ourselves, and the purpose which has assembled us, thy paternal 
smile and benediction. 

Framer of our bodies ! Frail and mortal hast thou made them. 
Awhile they flourish, like these fair creations of summer, and then, 
like them, they decay and fall. And we have come to set apart an* 
other resting-place, where their dust may sleep ; another garden of 
graves, where the mourners may come and lay their dead, mid Na- 
ture's whispered requiem, and come again and plant the flower and 
drop the tear above their rest. And now, O God, in thy invoked 
presence, Avould we consecrate this enclosure to the sacred uses of 
bereaved affection. We would consecrate it to those holy instincts of 
the heart, which lead us to care for and to honor the spirit's forsaken 
tenement, for that spirit's sake. We would consecrate it, in the name 
of the Eternal Father, and the risen Christ, and the Holy Comforter, 
to the great hope of immortality, to the sweet persuasions of religious 
faith, to the che3ring anticipations of a restoring heaven. Now and 
henceforth forever would we thus devote it. Consecrate it, we pray 



33 

thee, O Source of all holy influence, by thy overshadowing Presence, 
by thy hallowing Spirit ! And as, one by one, these spaces shall be 
filled with their unconscious tenantry ; as, one by one, the weeping 
trains shall enter, from desolated homes, these sylvan shades, O be 
that Presence felt, that Spirit found, by each sorrowing heart. May 
this place, O God, to all who seek it for its sacred ends, be full of 
Thee. May its fragrant breezes seem to syllable thy name, — each 
blossom to proclaim thy love ! May each memorial-stone, while it 
tells of a human affection, point to the infinite Fountain whence it 
springs ; while it tells of the destruction of mortal hopes, remind of 
that, which, based upon thy promises, is full of immortality. 

God of our lives ! How fleeting and short they are ! How soon, for 
each of us, shall the grave be ready ! How soon, here or elsewhere, 
shall these now breathing forms be laid in the unwaking sleep, and tho 
places that know us shall know us no more forever ! " What shadows^ 
we are, and what shadows we pursue !" And yet, we bless thee, O 
God, not all is a shadow, not all is vanity, not all is perishable. 

Father of our spirits ! who hast given us in them, and in the good' 
thou hast placed within their reach, a treasure over which Time and 
Death have no power, — priceless, eternal, — O help us, we pray, to 
live continually, devotedly, for them, and their imperishable objects. 
Help us to cherish and unfold within us all good affections and holy 
principles. Help us to live the true, the divine life. Help us to be 
faithful to thine inward teachings ; faithful to every committed trust, 
every means of spiritual advancement, every opportunity of doing 
good ; faithful even unto death ; — that when that messenger shall come, 
w'e may hear in his summons a Father's voice, bidding us to our 
brighter home, — to scenes of higher service and holier joy, for which 
our faithfulness shall have prepared us. 

Hear us, O Father ; hear and accept us ; — which we ask as disciples 
of Him " who liveth and was dead," and through whom thou hast 
given ws the victory over sin and the grave. Amen, 



34 



ODE, 

BY EPES SARGENT, ESQ., BOSTON. 

Not in this green retreat 

However beautiful, while Summer launches 
Her odors and soft airs through swaying branches :- 
Though wild flowers court our feet, 
And though the wild birds capture 
The listening sense with their melodious rapture, — 
Not here, not here, my friends. 

Let us believe the loved one shall repose, 
Or that life's true receptacle descends 

To the dark mould, where sods above it close, 
And the immortal with the mortal blends ! 
Let not despair or sensual distrust 
Confound this mouldering dust 
With the true person — with the inner form, 

Which gave the outward all it had of fair ; — • 
Which is no kindred of the worm, 

No warrant for despair ! 
Not here, my soul, not for one moment here, 
Sinks the pure life-spring of one generous tear 5 
Of one heaven-aimed affection, 
One tender recollection. 
One deed of goodness in seclusion wrought, 
One lesson, or one thought ! 
As water rises to its fountain-head, 
However low you lay its transient bed, 
So must the spirit, from its earthward course^ 
Mount to the Deity, which is its source ! 



35 

We give the infant, who to walk is learning, 

His leading-strings ; — corks to the doubtful swimmer ; 
So are these bodies, for our brief sojourning, 

Helps to us here, while schooled in being's primer. 
For here, in God's stupendous seminary, 

What various lore the thoughtful eye engages ! 
Morning and night — the seasons as they vary, — 

Spread for our use illuminated pages. 
If all were ours unearned, what need of action .'' 

If God no problem set for our unfolding, 
Where were the joy, the power, the benefaction 

Of toil, and faith, and prayer, our spirits moulding? 
Where were the innocence, without temptation ? 

Where, without freedom, were the self-denial ? 
Where were the goal, the triumph, the salvation, 

Without the doubt, the danger, and the trial ? 
And though to some the fairer lot be given, 
Unstained, because untried, to enter Heaven, 
O doubt not there is compensation ever 
From Him, the just and unforgetting Giver ! 

If then the Saviour's promise and example 

Be an assurance ample, 

Let us not say, however fair the breast 

Of the green hill-side, where the graves are made, — 
" Here the beloved ones rest ! 

" Here in this forest shade !" 
Distant, — and yet how near ! — 

Where kindred spirits kindred joys pursue. 
In duties ever dear, 

Surprises ever new. 
They range from sphere to sphere 
Through all the fresh delights of God's eternal year ! 



36 

Nor are their human ties forgotten quite ; 

With the strong will to see friends left behind 
Cometh a might 
Swifter than light, 
And they are here, though viewless as the wind ; 
With privilege, at times, to interpose 
Between us and our woes. 

Since it is gain ineffable, to die 

Unto the mortal eye. 

What doth it matter to the spirit freed 

If the decaying husk feed flower or weed ? 

Then for the living be the grounds out-laid, 

The eager soil arrayed ! 

Remote from cities and from habitations, 

Here where the grateful trees and underwood 
Convert corruption's noxious emanations, 

Through Nature's wondrous alchemy, to good. 
Not a Necropolis, — 
Rather a garden this ! 
With sylvan alleys and enamelled banks 
And pines in plume-tost ranks. 
Here let the roses bloom ! 
Here let the wild bee come 
To find the ground 

Heaped with such flowery wealth as bee ne'er found ! 
But 0, high-building Vanity ! forbear 

To rear upon this spot th' o'ercostly pile ! 
Rather let living Want thy bounty share, 

And trust thou unto watchful Nature's smile 
To keep the turf above thy ashes bright. 
In Spring's first verdure dight. 
Then shall this be a Mount of Hope indeed, 
Where not one doubtful title we shall read. 



37 



SELECTED HYMN. 

TUNE MARION, FROM MOZART's COLLKCTION. 

Behold the Western evening light ! 

It melts in deepening gloom ; 
So calmly Christians sink away, 

Descending to the tomb. 

How beautiful on all the hills, 
The crimson light is shed ; 

'Tis like the peace the dying gives 
To mourners round his bed. 

How mildly on the wandering cloud 

The sunset beam is cast ! 
So sweet the memory left behind, 

When loved ones breathe their last. 

And, lo ! above the dews of night 

The vesper star appears ! 
So faith lights up the mourner's heart, 

Whose eyes are dim with tears. 

Night falls, but soon the morning light 

Its glories shall restore ; 
And thus the eyes that sleep in death 

Shall wake to close no more. 



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BENEDICTION, 

BY REV. HUBBARD WINSLOW, BOSTON. 

The blessing of Almighty God our Heavenly Father, and of his Son 
our Saviour, and of the Holy Ghost, descend and dwell with all that 
shall slumber in these consecrated grounds. May his watchful eye be 
ever upon them, amidst the storms of winter and the smiles of summer, 
during the long ages that await the morning of the resurrection. 

When that illustrious day shall break upon the dark realms of death, 
and all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God 
and come forth ; may those resting in hope beneath this hallowed turf, 
a number far transcending that of the great congregation of the living 
now assembled, arise in new and glorious forms to endless life. 

May we have part with them, and with those that sleep in Jesus in 
every portion of the world, in the same resurrection. And when this 
mortal shall have put on immortality, when we shall have done with 
death and tears and graves, when the visions of endless glory shall 
open before us without a cloud, may we all meet again in the ever- 
lasting kingdom of God our Saviour, and unite with the vast assembly 
of the redeemed in ascribing Blessing, and honor, and glory, and 
power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, 
forever and ever. Amen. 



39 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The undersigned, duly appointed Agents of the Mount Hope 
Cemetery Corporation, would respectfully give notice, that the 
grounds are now open for public inspection, and that visitors 
will be cheerfully received at all seasonable hours, by David 
Ilaggcrston, Esq., the Superintendent, whose residence is within 
the enclosure. Mr. H. will also exhibit the various points of 
interest, and render assistance and advice in the selection of 
eligible sites for family burial-places. His certificate of the 
choice made by any subscriber, will, when presented to the 
Treasurer, F. O. Watts, Esq., No, 30 Court Street, at once 
secure a clear deed of the premises, on payment of $'25 for each 
lot of HOO square feet. 

A Receiving Tomb, for the temporary deposit of bodies 
awaiting the preparation of graves, or the construction of tombs, 
is already completed. Single grave rights, in dilFerent locations, 
may be had at moderate rates. 

Copies, in blank, of the Proprietors' deeds of conveyance, may 
be examined at the office of the Treasurer, or at that of the 
Agents, who are fully prepared to give all further information 
that may be desired. The following liberal provision is espe- 
cially commended to general attention, viz. : — 

*' The Corporation also covenant, that of the amounts which 
may be annually received by them for burial lots, a portion, not 
less than one fourth part thereof, shall be expended for the gen- 
eral improvement of the Cemetery grounds, including therein 
the item of compensation of superintendent and other agents, 
and in providing a fund of Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars. 
And when said fund shall have been raised, the obligation to 
make the expenditure in manner aforesaid shall cease, and the 
said fund shall be invested under the general direction of the 



40 

Boal'd of Directors, or such other officers or agents as the Cor- 
poration may appoint, — and the net income thereof shall be 
expended as aforesaid." 

The distance of Mount Hope Cemetery from Boylston market 
has been computed at about five miles. It is approachable by 
free and spacious roads and avenues, crossing neither bridge nor 
railroad, affording delightful drives through rural districts of 
country in all directions, and so amply furnished with guide- 
boards that no traveller can mistake his way. The most direct 
carriage route from the city, is through Northampton and East 
.streets, passing Grove Hall, — beyond which the road is plainly 
indicated. 

Passengers are also conveyed to the grounds by way of the 
Providence Railroad, and a line of omnibusses running between 
the Cemetery and the Toil-Gate station, — meeting there the 
Dedham trains on their way to or from the city. The fare 
through is but 16 cents; and tickets may be procured either at 
the Depot, in Boston, or of 

LORING, PORTER «fc CO., Age7its, 

July, 1852. 25 & 27 Water Street- 



